


Easy

by sebastian2017



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Legion type reality bending, Time Travel, What really happens in this fic? that's between God and David Haller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22976812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebastian2017/pseuds/sebastian2017
Summary: David knows it's not a good idea, but he can't help wondering what would happen if he goes back to save Daniel's life. Ruth stops him.
Relationships: Ruth Aldine/David Haller
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9
Collections: MCU RarePairs Bingo 2019





	Easy

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for the square "Time Travel" of the MCU Rare Pairs Bingo
> 
> cw: allusions to suicidal thoughts, implied delusions

It won't make him feel better. David knows it won't. And he also remembers how terribly things ended the last time he'd tried to mess with time travel. But he can't help planning it all out. It seems like it would be so easy. Just go back, keep his stepfather from ever being killed, and then that's that. Everything would be fine. right? No Daniel being murdered, no absorbing someone else's psyche, no fracturing his own mind, no everything else that had happened since then. It would be perfect. The one moment where everything had gone wrong and so easy to change. 

That's what he'd thought about going back to stop Magneto, too, and that maybe his father's love would change everything and clearly, that hadn't worked out quite as planned. But David had a better feeling about this one! Going right to the root of the problem, that would solve everything. He's sure of it. (They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results and David is very much insane, so it makes sense.) 

Even while telling himself time and time again that it's a bad idea, David still makes it all the way back to the day it happened. It scares him sometimes, how little effort it takes him to do these things, to travel through space and time and end up right at the spot where his life was ruined forever, only a few streets away from the place it happened. He's glad he's just insane instead of evil, because with power like this, who could really stop him if he woke up one day and decided to destroy the world? It's one of the reasons he's scared of himself so often, why he thinks so much about ending it all as a preventive measure for all he could do. The fact he worries so much is probably a good sign he won't turn in that direction, but it scares him nonetheless.

And it probably should scare him, because here he is, knowing full well it this is a bad idea and still standing here, staring at his childhood home and knowing that he's in there somewhere, still perfectly normal and happy and in time to be saved. It would be so easy. So easy. David could do it with the barest of thoughts, probably. 

"It wouldn't change anything. You know that," a familiar voice says next to him. 

David isn't as surprised as he probably should be when he turns around to face Ruth. He doesn't even bother saying a proper hello. He just shrugs a bit. "You don't know that. It might." 

"I do know, though. We both do, don't we?" she says, reaching over to take his hand. "Some things are always meant to happen. They're like... boulders that the rest of time flows around. A million different possible outcomes for everything and some things always happen." 

"But maybe this one doesn't. It would be easy. So easy. Just... a nudge here, a shove there..." David insists, if perhaps weakly. "I could do it." 

Ruth squeezes his hand, encouragement even as she breaks down any hope he still had. "I know you could. And then, somehow, things will end up as they need to be. Someone will come by tomorrow or your mother will make a wrong turn in her car or the right rain drop will fall at the right time. Some things are just inevitable, David." 

"It's not fair... Why is nothing ever fair?" he mumbles, kicking at some rocks nearby. Can't make his father love him, can't fix his life, can't be sane. What's the point of all this power he has if he can't even do the bare minimum? 

"I know. Why don't we go home, David?" Ruth suggests. "We can figure it all out from home." 

David nods, sighing as he turns to walk away from his childhood home, knowing full well what'll happen inside in a few hours. He's still holding Ruth's hand when he asks, "You're not really here, are you?" 

"Does it matter?" she asks. 

"Guess not..." David sighs and squeezes her hand one last time before closing his eyes and envisioning home. Maybe some other day he'd figure out how to make everything right. Maybe then.

**Author's Note:**

> it's cry about david haller o'clock


End file.
